Government spending in the top ten U.S. states for public corruption is artificially higher by more than $1,300 per capita every year

In the minds of many, the government corruption tends to be a problem largely limited to developing countries. Yet, in new research Cheol Liu and John L. Mikesell, find that corruption across U.S. states is a major – and costly – problem. They find that the ten most corrupt states could have reduced their annual expenditure by more than $1,300 per capita, if their level of corruption was reduced to the states’ average. They also argue that public corruption influences how state resources are allocated to favor more “bribe-generating” spending such as construction, highways, correction, and police protection ahead of education, health and hospitals

Budgetary Punctuations: A Fiscal Management Perspective

Although the development of punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) makes broad reference to the bureaucratic procedures that regulate budgetary decision-making and makes reasonable assumptions about the influence that those procedures have on the dynamic of resource allocation, little is known about how the specific mechanisms work. This has led to a call to “understand the processes which lead to friction in greater detail” (Baumgartner et al, 2009). This research examines how budgetary output patterns are influenced by fiscal strategic choices made by governments. We find significant deviations of budgetary output patterns in capital projects, restricted funds, and entitlement spending, thus signifying the influence of fiscal management practices on resource allocation decisions. Furthermore, we empirically associate spending punctuation patterns with the growing democratic institutional development in Hong Kong. By examining legislative filibuster cases related to capital projects, we found evidence associating democratization with greater institutional frictions and consequently with larger budgetary output punctuations

Modeling the Economic Impacts of Korean Unification

This paper explores the economic impacts of Korean unification on North and South Korea. It presents a new consistent database on macroeconomic, sectoral and trade data, and an input–output table for the North Korean economy, and then incorporates it in a global intertemporal multi‐sector general equilibrium model. Assuming hypothetical scenarios such as North Korea's reform and gradual convergence, its sudden collapse and immediate unification, and chaos and crises in both Koreas, we quantify the consequences of Korean unification on economic activity, trade and capital flows in the two Koreas. The results highlight the importance of the unification processes and of alternative policy responses in both Koreas to the economic impacts of unification.This research is funded by a grant from the Australian Research Council # DP150103821

Testing the Determinants of Corruption from Multiple Theoretical Lenses: The Case of the U.S. States

This article compares the determinants of public corruption from multiple theoretical lenses and then tests which ones are more effective in curbing public corruption in the context of the U.S. states. We find that the stringency of state tax and expenditure limits, fiscal transparency, voter turnout rates, unified Democratic control, divided control of state governments, political competitiveness, population with Scandinavian ancestry, and educational attainment are all significantly and negatively associated with the extent of public corruption. Compared with other approaches to curbing corruption (i.e., the lawyer’s approach, the businessman’s approach, and the economist’s approach), those that restrict public officials’ discretionary power and encourage educated citizens’ participation appear to be more effective in reducing corruption in the U.S. states

Effective Resource Management of Governments and Corruption

This paper shows theoretically and empirically that public officials’ corruption is likely to degrade the quality of government management practices. By shedding light inside the classic “black box” idea of management, we explain how public corruption exerts a bad influence upon leadership, use of information and resource allocation. This bad influence of public corruption, as a consequence, will deteriorate the overall management quality of governments by weakening the integration of management subsystems. Data support our arguments by showing that increase in public corruption in an American state government decreases the probability significantly that the state may maintain its management excellence. The paper also demonstrates that infrastructure management of state governments is most vulnerable to corruption. Two-stage least squares instrumental variable (2SLS-IV) regressions support the robustness of our model and the empirical results

Structural and Function Analyses of the Global Regulatory Protein SarA from Staphylococcus Aureus

The sarA locus in Staphylococcus aureus controls the expression of many virulence genes. The sarA regulatory molecule, SarA, is a 14.7-kDa protein (124 residues) that binds to the promoter region of target genes. Here we report the 2.6 Å-resolution x-ray crystal structure of the dimeric winged helix SarA protein, which differs from the published SarA structure dramatically. In the crystal packing, multiple dimers of SarA form a scaffold, possibly via divalent cations. Mutations of individual residues within the DNA-binding helix–turn–helix and the winged region as well as within the metal-binding pocket implicate basic residues R84 and R90 within the winged region to be critical in DNA binding, whereas acidic residues D88 and E89 (wing), D8 and E11 (metal-binding pocket), and cysteine 9 are essential for SarA function. These data suggest that the winged region of the winged helix protein participates in DNA binding and activation, whereas the putative divalent cation binding pocket is only involved in gene function

One-loop Noncommutative U(1) Gauge Theory from Bosonic Worldline Approach

We develop a method to compute the one-loop effective action of noncommutative U(1) gauge theory based on the bosonic worldline formalism, and derive compact expressions for N-point 1PI amplitudes. The method, resembling perturbative string computations, shows that open Wilson lines emerge as a gauge invariant completion of certain terms in the effective action. The terms involving open Wilson lines are of the form reminiscent of closed string exchanges between the states living on the two boundaries of a cylinder. They are also consistent with recent matrix theory analysis and the results from noncommutative scalar field theories with cubic interactions.Comment: 1+35 pages, Latex, address info adde

Public Corruption and Organizational Performance: Evidence from Highway Transportation

Public corruption has significant negative effects on the performance of public agencies in both developing and developed countries. In this paper, we propose a theoretical approach to understanding the potential impact of public corruption on the performance of public organizations. We constructed multiple indexes for capturing the sectoral and overall performance of US state highway transportation agencies based on road quality, the status of bridges, traffic congestion, traffic fatalities, and overall highway performance. Using state panel data for the period from 2002 to 2008, we found that public corruption had a negative impact on the quality of state roads and bridges and on traffic congestion and was associated with increases in traffic fatalities. Overall, we confirmed that corruption has the potential to diminish significantly the performance of US highway transportation agencies

Substellar Companions to Evolved Intermediate-Mass Stars: HD 145457 and HD 180314

We report the detections of two substellar companions orbiting around evolved intermediate-mass stars from precise Doppler measurements at Subaru Telescope and Okayama Astrophysical Observatory. HD 145457 is a K0 giant with a mass of 1.9 M_sun and has a planet of minimum mass m_2sini=2.9 M_J orbiting with period of P=176 d and eccentricity of e=0.11. HD 180314 is also a K0 giant with 2.6 M_sun and hosts a substellar companion of m_2sin i=22 M_J, which falls in brown-dwarf mass regime, in an orbit with P=396 d and e=0.26. HD 145457 b is one of the innermost planets and HD 180314 b is the seventh candidate of brown-dwarf-mass companion found around intermediate-mass evolved stars.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in PAS